AI, Digital Transformation and the New Executive Skillset
Technology alone won't define the leaders of tomorrow. Michelle Kilcar explores why digital understanding, sound judgement and the ability to inspire people are essential for leading businesses through an AI-driven future.
Walk into almost any leadership meeting right now and you'll hear a version of the same question. Who is actually going to lead our AI strategy?
It's a fair question, and a telling one, because it shows how quickly the idea of a capable senior leader is changing.
The scale of the shift is genuinely striking.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs research estimates that around 39% of the core skills people need will change by 2030, and that the vast majority of businesses expect AI and data to reshape how they work within the same window. Roles that barely existed a few years ago, like Chief AI Officer, Chief Data Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer, are now appearing on org charts and in succession plans.
We've seen what this looks like up close. On our own podcast, The Tomorrow People, Diarmuid Cullinan, who leads strategic manufacturing and process development at Aerogen, described how AI helped cut one documentation process from three months to one. An extraordinary gain. What struck me was that he didn't stop at the good news. He went straight to the harder question it raises for every leader: if AI absorbs the routine work, how does the next generation build the experience they'll need to lead one day? The jobs don't simply disappear. They get redesigned, and someone has to lead that redesign thoughtfully.
You might assume all of this is a story about technology. It's really a story about people.
The same research found that the fastest-rising leadership skill isn't technical at all. It's leadership and the ability to bring people with you through change. As AI takes on more of the number-crunching, the very human qualities become more valuable, not less. Judgement. Trust. The ability to keep a team steady and motivated when a lot is in motion.
Amy Murr, who has spent twenty years in HR and is helping build ProVerum's team across Galway, Dublin and the US, put it perfectly on the same series. As she sees it, everyone now has access to the same information, so your relationships and your reputation become your real differentiator. Trust, as she says, is built slowly and lost quickly. Her list of what will still matter in five years is short, and not one item on it is technical: communication in every form, being resolution-focused rather than only spotting problems, and curiosity, which she calls a superpower.
So the leaders worth hiring now tend to hold two things at once.
They're comfortable enough with AI and digital transformation to set a clear direction and ask sharp questions. They don't need to write the code, but they won't be bluffed either. And they lead in a deeply human way. Open about what they don't yet know, calm with a bit of ambiguity, and able to create the kind of environment where people do their best work even through big change.
That combination is rarer than people assume, which is exactly why finding it takes more than a keyword search on a CV.
It's very live here in Ireland. IDA Ireland has put leadership capability and AI-ready, digitally skilled workforces right at the heart of its strategy for the years ahead, and the multinationals and growing Irish businesses I work with feel that every single day. The talent is here. The real skill is identifying who can genuinely lead through this change, rather than just talk about it well.
At HERO ONE, we look closely at how a leader thinks and adapts, not only at what they've done before. Lorna Martyn, CIO for Corporate Services Technology at Fidelity Investments Ireland and thirty-five years into a career in technology, summed it up better than I could when she joined us on the podcast: the art of learning matters more than the subject itself. In a market moving this fast, track record matters, and the appetite to keep learning matters even more.
If you're building a leadership team to carry your business through its next chapter of change, I'd love to help you find the people who can. And if you'd like to hear these conversations in full, our podcast, The Tomorrow People, is where we explore them. Either way, let's start with a conversation.
Michelle Kilcar
Co-Founder & Director, HERO